Adrian graduated in medicine in 1915 from Trinity College, Cambridge. After medical service during World War I, he spent the greater part of his professional life at Cambridge in research and teaching, and as master of Trinity College (1961–65) and chancellor of the University (1968–75).

Adrian researched nerve impulses from sense organs, amplifying variations in electrical potential and recording smaller potential changes than had been detectable previously. Later he recorded nerve impulses from single sensory endings and motor nerve fibres, measurements contributing to a better understanding of the physical basis of sensation and the mechanism of muscular control. After 1934 Adrian studied the electrical activity of the brain; his work on the variations and abnormalities of the changes known as the Berger rhythm opened new fields of investigation in epilepsy and in the location of cerebral lesions.

He was president of the Royal Society (1950–55) and of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1954). In 1942 he was awarded the Order of Merit and in 1955 a barony. Among his writings are The Basis of Sensation (1928), The Mechanism of Nervous Action (1932), and The Physical Background of Perception (1947).